Pancakes
by Enid Earthling
Summary: Damon has returned home, missing Bonnie. Bonnie is trapped in 1994, missing Damon. And despite themselves, they both really miss those pancakes.
1. Chapter 1

Bonnie watched Kai turn the Ascendant over in his hands, the ancient metal glistening in the day's fading sun. Another day gone. Another day she was spending by his side, hard as she try to leave it. Another day in someone else's personal hell.

Sitting up, the still festering wound in her belly caused her body to spasm momentarily. The pain flooding to her face, a grimace on her lips.

Kai noticed and nodded approvingly, admiring his own handy work.

Why couldn't reliving the same day over and over and over be more like the movies? Why couldn't everything reset? Her wound would disappear at the sight of sunlight tomorrow, the smell of pancakes would waft through once again, and the feelings of loss would wash away.

Instead, it was all there. Had been there for days. The wound was barely healing and the loss was growing bigger by the minute, opening and bleeding like a new arrow to the gut.

"Are you going to help?" Kai asked, trying to press the tiny missing cog into the Ascendant, his fingers too thick to properly do the job.

"I have no magic, remember? What's the point?"

Bonnie pushed herself off the couch and limped toward Kai, who was sitting like a child on the floor. As she passed him, she kicked the Ascendant and the cog popped out again.

In anger, Kai grabbed her bare leg and squeezed. Bonnie chuckled.

"You can't take anything from me," she told him.

"Can't I?" he said, his mood changing, his hand snaking further up, toward the fraying denim of her cutoff shorts.

Bonnie wretched her leg free, causing pain to erupt from her belly once more.

"Gee, I'm so sorry Bonnie," Kai sarcastically told her. "You know I'm not myself when I'm trapped in a dimensional purgatory. Besides, that rubber my uncle gave me in '88 is practically in tatters in my wallet."

Kai reached to his back pocket, as if to show her.

Bonnie walked from the room, through the foyer and out the front door.

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to know where my wallet is? I have like six bucks in there!" He called out after her.

Bonnie knew there was no need to listen. She no longer had magic, no longer had any power, no longer had anything he needed. She could come and go as she pleased, stopping only to dodge his occasional outbursts or sleep off the pain. Listening to his quips no longer had to be a part of the deal.

Bonnie wondered how long that would last, the tepid truce between herself and a psychopath. It had been three days since she hid her magic away, sending it to 2014, and only once had Kai grabbed her throat, tightening until she almost passed out. Only once. Bonnie considered that a victory. But eventually the killer beside her would bust loose and she would have to be his next victim, simply because there was no one else.

Walking through the woods near the Salvatore Boarding House, her body stiff and sore, Bonnie found herself halfway to the crypts she and her friends always found themselves drawn to. Pulling herself up onto the tombstone of John Mason, she sat, momentarily wondering if she was somehow desecrating the man's resting place, but thinking since she was basically dead too Mr. Mason probably wouldn't mind.

Her feet dangling, her black combat boots unlaced, Bonnie watched the wind barely blow through the leaves on the trees before her, wondering if someone else was watching them too.

But he couldn't be. She was not only in another dimension, but a past dimension. Wherever he was, it was not there with her.

As she sighed in remorse, in near-defeat, a hand wrapped itself around her throat, a body pressing against her from behind. Bonnie screamed as she was pulled from the tombstone, the force leaving a lone boot behind.

—

Damon took another gulp of scotch from the bottle, his boots pressed up against John Mason's tombstone, his back laying in the dirt over the man's centuries old decaying corpse. Cradled in his left arm, a tattered teddy bear, whose true meaning Damon could barely wrap his mind around.

She was alive. She was alright, potentially. And she needed him.

Looking up into the trees, watching the wind pathetically press against the leaves, Damon thought about Bonnie. He was always thinking about Bonnie. And it was terrible.

The longer he thought of her, with no resolution, the less liquor would exist the world over.

Bonnie found herself on the ground, leaves crackling underneath her and she scrambled to her feet. Suddenly, a foot came to rest at her stomach. The arrow wound ripped open once more as her whole being was thrown from the dirt and into a tree trunk. She hit it hard, her bones crying out, before slumping forward, spent and confused.

"It won't go back together," Kai told her. "You broke it."

"What are you talking about?" Bonnie struggled out, blood pooling in her mouth and dribbling to the ground.

Kai swiftly grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to her feet. Bonnie screamed in agony.

"The Ascendant! What else would I be talking about, Bonnie? It's broken!"

"I have no magic, Kai. It doesn't matter."

Still holding her hair, Kai pulled her face as close to his as possible, breathing her in, getting off on her palpable fear.

He whispered, "Of course you have magic, BonBon. It's out there for us to find."

"It's not—"

"Shut up!" he commanded. "It's out there. It has to be out there."

Bonnie let the tears flow as he shook her violently.

"Isn't it?!" he screamed at her.

"Yes!" Bonnie replied, trying to appease him.

"Yes, what?" Kai asked, slowly releasing his grip on her hair.

"Yes, my magic is out there."

Kai let her go. Before she could gather herself he thrust the Ascendant into her hands.

"Fix it."

Bonnie hesitated.

"Fix it!" Kai shouted, kicking Mr. Mason's tombstone in fury, nearly cracking it in half.

—

Damon sat upright, staring at the tombstone, a crack almost clear down the centre. Was that always there, he thought to himself. Looking at the empty bottle of scotch he knew it was and chuckled. He was being ridiculous, of course. He was getting drunk, of course. He was missing her…of course.

Staring at the break in the tombstone, the cut in stone, Damon's eyes were drawn down to it's end point hidden in the growing grass and ivy. Pushing all the green aside, Damon could clearly see Mr. Mason's relevant dates, the crack breaking apart 1721 and 1755. He could also see rubber in the dirt.

Something told him to look further, deeper, to figure it out. But the scotch was empty and he was getting tired of thinking. Grabbing the bear and the bottle Damon stood up, leaving Mr. Mason as he stalked back through the woods, further away from Mystic Falls.

A moment later, he returned, quickly getting to his knees, his hands digging in the dirt. He couldn't control his urgency.

Suddenly, there in his hands, covered in mud and grass and the past was a black combat boot. Women's. Small. Familiar. Instantly, he knew why and he smiled.

The teddy bear was magic, pure Bonnie Bennett magic. But the boot…that was something else.

Her prison was connected to the real world. If she wanted, Bonnie could communicate with him. She was suddenly so close he could taste her, or wished he could.

Then, almost as quickly, Damon sadly realized that Bonnie would never know he had her boot. How could she? He had no way to "talk" back.

Communication was now lost. Hope dwindling yet again.

—

"Fix it!" Kai screamed once more.

In the dimming sunlight, standing in the woods, one foot naked in the dirt, Bonnie finished. The Ascendant was whole once more.

She held it up and Kai snatched it away, turning his back on her and walking back to the Salvatore Boarding House. He had done what he set out to do: scare her half to death. Scare her into knowing where the real power lay.

One minute he was a child, taunting her, playing with her mind. The next he was brutal and unforgiving. The change made her stomach lurch.

Holding herself in the growing cold, Bonnie limped after Kai, not truly wanting to, but also not wanting to let go of the place she spent so many mornings eating pancakes with Damon.

The pain rushed in again and Bonnie fell to her feet, right in front of Mr. Mason's tombstone.

In the end of day light, Bonnie placed her hand on the fresh break, her fingers running over the crack all the way down to 1755. And there, scrawled into the stone were the words: _"Have hope. I'm bringing you home."_


	2. Chapter 2

Liv sat before the tombstone of John Mason, her arms outstretched, palms up towards the waining sunned sky. As the orange glow of day faded behind a thicket of trees, she chanted, her whole body and mind one with the magic.

Damon and Tyler stood behind her, keeping their distance, at Damon's insistence, each watching intently. Over and over Liv spoke into the night, her form rocking with the wind.

Tyler eased forward, but Damon put his arm out to stop him, yet again, and the two rested back into their spectator positions.

Finally, after nearly twenty minutes, Liv exhaled heavily and let her arms drop.

"Why are you stopping?" Damon asked her, incredulously. As he stepped forward toward her it was Tyler's turn to put an arm out, but Damon slapped it away.

"Damon, leave her alone. She's done all she can do," Tyler said forcefully, following Damon into the circle of dried flowers and broken twigs that surrounded the blonde witch.

"She can do more. Witches can always do more."

"Come off it man, or you're going to be—" Tyler stepped between a sitting Liv and a charging Damon.

"Or I'm gonna be what?" Damon questioned.

"Sorry," Tyler continued, pushing Damon backwards. In an instant, Damon was pushing back.

"Enough!" Liv cried out, wiping her sweaty palms on the front of jeans. She pushed herself upwards to stand, finding Tyler's arms suddenly around her waist, helping her. Liv pulled herself free, not wanting to seem weak or drained after using her magic. Not wanting to be someone Tyler Lockwood would have to save.

"I say when we've had enough," Damon began, but Liv put her hand up, waving it before his face.

There on her palm, the words: "_Have hope. I'm bringing you home_" were fading, until there was nothing left but the paleness of her skin.

Damon looked worried, sad even, not sure what had just happened, but the smile on Liv's face told him this couldn't be a joke. No one could be that cruel. Except maybe him, and that psychopath he had left Bonnie with.

Craning her neck around, Liv motioned to the tombstone and Damon followed her gaze, rushing to the ground and examining the witch's handiwork.

There it was, his message to Bonnie, scrawled into Mr. Mason's final resting plot. Damon could not contain his glee.

"I think you owe someone an apology," Tyler instructed.

"Tyler. Please. I don't need you to do that," she explained, feeling slightly embarrassed by his attention and slightly blushed due to his protective nature.

"You did what you said you would do," Tyler continued. "And you owed him nothing."

Damon spun around. "Yeah, right. Nothing. Except for the fact that if it wasn't for her, Bonnie wouldn't—"

Damon stopped himself, looking at Liv, seeing her guilt and recognizing his own in her eyes. He knew he should leave it alone, unless he wanted to hear it all tossed back in his face. If anyone was going to call him selfish it was going to be Bonnie. He needed to focus all his energy on getting her back.

"Never mind," Damon said. "This is good. Really good."

"Somehow "sorry" sounds different coming from you," Tyler quipped.

"One step at a time," Damon told him. Running a hand through his loose brown hair, Damon crouched down once more, looking at the words, feeling so close to Bonnie, wondering if she was seeing the message and feeling close to him too. He could almost taste the pancakes.

"Why 1994?" Liv suddenly asked.

"What?"

"Why was it so important that message be seen in 1994?" She asked again.

"The year of the white Bronco, Pulp Fiction and that creepy MJ and Lisa Marie wedding. I think the question is, "why _wouldn't_ it be 1994?" Damon said sarcastically, his eyes still burning themselves onto the message.

"Seriously man, what is going on?" Tyler wondered aloud.

"I find it funny that everyone around here asks those ever probing questions after the deed is done," Damon said. "Like an evil villain giving away his plans just in time for the incredibly handsome and charismatic hero to thwart it."

He gestured to himself as he stood, leaning on the tombstone, facing Tyler and Liv.

"Is _she _in 1994?" Liv asked. Damon did not answer. "Because if she's back there, in the past, then yes this message will reach her. But if she's somewhere else, somewhere that looks or feels like 1994, but isn't the real deal, well…then I have no idea where this message will be."

Damon's eyes grew wide in confusion. Liv was smarter than he thought, maybe because instead of growing up Brady she grew up in a coven. Witches must know more, feel more, expect more, he was sure, and now he knew that Liv was on to him. But why didn't she say something before the spell? Why make him think it was going to work? Damon's eyes suddenly began to glow with rage.

"You said this would work! " he snarled.

"It did. Travel back to the Land of Flannel and it will be there, but…is that where she is?"

"Why would she be there?' Tyler asked. "You told Jeremy and Caroline and anyone else who would listen that she was gone. Dead, but in peace. Are you saying that was a lie?"

"I'm saying this message needs to be in 1994. Don't ask me why, it just has to be," Damon said.

Liv nodded. "It is. But, you have to understand that the walls between the past and the present are just as thin as those between dimensions. If s_omeone_ is there communicating with you or you with them, there are no guarantees how long that will last. I mean, it shouldn't be possible...not without—"

"Without what?" Damon wondered.

"Nothing," she replied, shaking her head. "It just shouldn't be possible. Time traveling magic is one thing, Damon. Dimensional magic, the kind you and I have been through, it's something else entirely. Something we might not want to mess with again."

"Cryptic much," Damon snapped.

"Trust me, the consequences are big with this kind of magic."

"Yeah, yeah. I get it. Step on a butterfly there and your great, great grandchild dies or something."

"Not exactly," Liz began.

"I trusted you, now you trust me," Damon stated. "I know someone is out there reading this. It had to be done."

There, on the other side of the tombstone, Bonnie's recently dug up boot leaned against the stone, hidden from Liv and Tyler's view. Damon had to believe that if he could see that, touch that, then Bonnie could see and touch the messages he sent back for her.

—

Bonnie sat on the ground before the tombstone, pulling her boot over her bare foot. Suddenly, she felt a cold shiver run up her back and she instantly knew something was off. Well, more off than her life in prison with Kai. Sensing something, sensing Damon perhaps, Bonnie took the boot off and stuffed it under the ivy that was growing around Mr. Mason's resting place. If Damon sent her a message something had to tell him she was there. She was that something.

—

Liv packed up her witchy wonders and began hiking out of the woods, a flashlight guiding her way in the darkening night.

Damon and Tyler began to follow, but Tyler stopped the vampire with a hand on his shoulder.

"If you don't tell them, I will," Tyler said. Then he pushed passed him, following his girlfriend-to-be, into the night, back to their car.

—

Opening the door to the Salvatore Boarding House, Bonnie stepped inside as silently as she could. The foyer was dark, really dark, and Bonnie had to squint to see, willing her eyes to adjust to the lack of light.

When it was just her and Damon, candles were always lit. It was intimate…not like that…but it was beautiful and calm and they were together.

Standing alone in the dark, Bonnie held on to the message: "_Have hope_." Her insistence that they would survive had rubbed off on Damon and now he was spouting her beliefs. Now that was intimate, she thought.

"Coming to bed," Kai said, his voice cutting through her thoughts, startling her back to her dreaded reality. "Don't worry. Tomorrow is another day. We'll get a bright and early start looking for that magic. Won't we?"

Kai was standing on the stairs to Bonnie's left, she could hear him and feel him, but in the dark she could not see him. Suddenly, he was beside her. She hadn't heard him move there, but in an instant his hands were on her shoulders, his breath on her ear.

"Won't we, Bonnie?"

"Goodnight Kai," Bonnie told him, walking away, feeling her way up the stairs, leaving the immediate danger behind. She knew that her acts of courage only made Kai like her more, but she couldn't suppress them. It was what being a Bennett was all about. Being a Bennett and a friend of Damon Salvatore's.

Bonnie found herself in Damon's room, circa 1994, so she knew the sheets were Elena-free. The thought made her smile. Bonnie slipped off her lone boot and pulled herself into Damon's bed, fully clothed and still covered in dirt, leaves stuck in her loose hair. Bonnie pulled the covers over her body and inhaled deep.

Then she let her courage slip, and cried, for only a moment, but it was still a good cry.

So good, she didn't hear the bedroom door open.

—

Damon sat on the border of Mystic Falls, staring into the night, wishing he could be there, in 1994 or even 2014. It didn't matter tonight. He just wanted to feel closer to her, to sleep in his old house and remember how they once slept there together. Not that _together_, but still.

"You alright?" Stefan said, taking a seat beside his brother, stretching his legs out on the ground.

"Not really, but I figure that's just how it is," Damon replied, not pulling his eyes away from the flickering lights of the town.

"I don't know," Stefan began. "You were happy for a while there."

"When my girlfriend knew me, loved me. When my best friend was my best friend. When we were fighting evil, real evil, and not our own bullshit, not ourselves."

"Damon—"

"I'm happiest when I have something to do. Loving Elena, supporting Alaric, taking down the travelers."

"Saving Bonnie," Stefan cut him off.

"Well, I think you can tell that I'm not happy…so I guess you're wrong there, brother."

"You're not happy yet, but when you get her back," Stefan explained.

"Who says I will?" Damon asked, finally looking his brother in the eye.

"I do."

"Damon!"

A female scream pierced the night.

"Bonnie!" Damon cried back, leaping to his feet and running straight into Mystic Falls, magic barriers be damned.


	3. Chapter 3

For the second time in a week, blood pooled from Damon's abdomen and his mind swelled with pain. He was dying from a gunshot wound, again.

"Damon!" Stefan cried, as he followed his brother over the boarder of Mystic Falls and back into the agony of near-death.

Grabbing Damon by his leather coat, his hand tucked tightly under the collar, Stefan pulled back and the two fall to the ground. But they were still in Mystic Falls, hurt and bleeding and sprawled on the asphalt road.

"Bonnie!" Damon screamed into the night, his teeth caked with his own red blood.

Ignoring him, and his feeble attempts to break free, Stefan dragged himself and his brother over the threshold and back to the Land of the Almost-Living.

"Why did you do that?" Damon questioned as his strength slowly returned.

"Me? What were you doing?" his brother asked, writhing on the road, holding his stomach, watching the wound disappear from his skin.

"She's calling for me Stefan. Bonnie needs me."

Damon sat up again and made another attempt to cross back, but Stefan quickly grabbed him and hugged him into his arms. There in the middle of the road, the Salvatore brothers struggled for breath, coming to from near-death. One of them crying, one of them hanging on tight.

—

"I don't understand," Elena said, sitting before her mirror, applying the finishing coat of mascara to her already thick lashes.

"He thought he heard Bonnie," Caroline explained. "And so he went running into Mystic Falls. I don't get how you don't get that."

"I get that. And I get that you get that. But what I don't get is why he thought he heard her," Elena wondered. "Was it someone else calling him?"

"Stefan says no. He says he didn't hear anything."

"Wait," Elena said, turing around and facing her best friend. "I thought you were freezing Stefan out. How do you know what he said?"

"Because he told Alaric."

Caroline finished buttoning the front of her coat, but she could not escape Elena's raised eyebrow.

"Fine. Stefan told Alaric who told Jeremy who told Matt who told me. Okay. Happy now?"

"I guess. But…" She trailed off.

"What?" Caroline asked.

"Well, why didn't anyone tell me? My guardian knows. My brother knows. My best friend knows. And—"

Caroline suddenly cleared her throat so loud Elena was sure she would need a glass of water.

"My best _guy _friend knows…and my best best friend. I mean," Elena continued, "why didn't anyone tell me?"

"That you're ex-boyfriend is hallucinating the desperate cries of your other best best friend and is willing to kill himself in an effort to save her from supposed danger? Yeah, we totally should have told you that sooner."

"Care," Elena sulked.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't even going to say anything, but…" Caroline trailed off.

"But this could mean Bonnie is—"

"Alive."

"Somewhere."

"Yeah," Caroline echoed. "Somewhere."

—

Bonnie awoke to the smell of pancakes and immediately felt her whole body alive with anticipation. She threw the covers off her form and nearly leapt from bed. Only as her feet hit the hardwood and the pain in her stomach shot up, did she remember Damon couldn't be downstairs cooking. It was Kai. It was a cruel joke.

Leaving her hair matted, a stray leaf still tucked into her strands, Bonnie marched, to the best of her wounded abilities, down the stairs and into the kitchen. She was prepared to tell Kai to go to hell. Except they were in hell. But she was prepared for a fight of some kind, itching for it, in fact.

"Forget how the shower works, Bon?" Damon asked her as she rounded the corner and into his sight.

He smiled at her, flipping a pancake into the air and onto a plate without losing her gaze.

"Damn, I am getting so good at that," he exclaimed. "You think we could rustle up a video camera, because I am feeling particularly handsome this morning. This could be the day that I make my Julia Child inspired, breakfast-only tv show dreams a reality."

Bonnie couldn't look away. Her mouth slightly open, her whole body on edge.

"What happened to you, by the way? Sleep walking again?" he asked, walking around the counter, with her plate in hand.

"I don't sleep walk," she replied as the plate found its spot on the table. She looked at a perfect pancake, with a strawberry-styled heart in the middle.

"She speaks," Damon joked, taking her by the shoulders gently and leading her to her seat. He placed her ever-present crossword at her side and then sat down across from her.

Maybe it was all a dream, she wondered. Kai. The Ascendant. The whole part about Damon going home; the part where she was left behind. They were still in hell, for sure, or purgatory at least. But now it was the two of them again. Bonnie couldn't help but smile.

"I found your boot," Damon said.

Bonnie's heart sunk. She knew instantly that this was a dream.

"And you found my message," he told her.

Bonnie nodded, but the joy was gone.

"And you found my message," Dream Damon repeated.

"Yes," she told him.

"And you found my message," he told her once more.

"Yeah, I got it—" Bonnie began, before she actually got it.

She had found the message, meaning there was a way to communicate after all. This place she was in, this hell, wasn't as cut off from the world as she thought. Just like the Other Side, there were cracks and kinks and loopholes and all she had to do was find them.

Grams wouldn't have put her there if the only way out was to release Kai, to use the Ascendant. Grams knew she was smart and Damon hadn't given up, his message proved that. She just needed to communicate that she was ready to find another way.

"And you found my message," Dream Damon repeated.

"I found it," she told him. "I believe it."

"Good. Now all we have to do is keep the conversation going. You need to find a way to contact me. Like the boot, but something else. I'm not sure what yet, I'm not sure if you can just leave something behind again. I'm not sure if the magic used can work again or the loophole you found will be there next time."

He was saying aloud all the things she was thinking, he was confirming her worst fears that this tentative plan might not work.

"It might not work," Dream Damon began, "but we have to try."

Bonnie smiled and he smiled back, just before his neck cracked to the right, his eyes frozen forever staring at her, his life snuffed out.

As Dream Damon's body slipped from the kitchen chair to the floor with a thud, Kai was revealed as the neck breaker, a smile on his face as well.

"What message?" he asked.

"Damon!" Bonnie screamed.

—

"Bonnie?"

Damon shook from a terrible sleep to find Stefan sitting in a chair beside Alaric's bed. Damon quickly looked to the space next to him, to ensure Alaric and he were still "just friends".

"You alright?" Alaric asked, walking in from the kitchen.

Damon was pleasantly surprised to find them all fully clothed.

"Just having another Brokeback dream," Damon quipped, sitting up in bed and taking the drink Alaric offered him.

"Really? Because you cried out Bonnie's name," Alaric remarked. "Unless she's playing the Jake Gyllenhaal part in your reenactment."

"Did you hear her?" Damon asked, seriously.

"Through your dream?" Alaric questioned. "No Damon, I can't say that I did."

"Don't look at me like I'm crazy," Damon commanded, flinging himself off the bed. He gulped the drink back and handed the glass over. "And next time you want to help me out, put alcohol in the glass."

"It's seven in the morning," Alaric responded.

"And I'm a vampire."

"Good point."

Damon made his way to the small bathroom in Alaric's rundown professor's apartment, and the shower was quickly turned on.

"He thinks he can hear her," Alaric said, returning the glass to the kitchen.

"I know," Stefan said, his eyes still closed, his body still stretched out in the chair.

"Well, what are we going to do?"

"Do you think he's crazy?" Stefan asked, finally pulling himself up.

"I think he's grieving, which is strange because I didn't think he and Bonnie—"

"Guilt?" Stefan interrupted.

"You think?"

"No. I mean, yes, some. But no," Stefan continued. "I honestly believe he thinks he can hear her. And if that's what it's going to take to get her back—"

"Then we accept the delusion and help out?" Alaric quipped.

"You erased Elena's memories, I think you owe him one," Stefan said.

"Or a hundred," Damon called from inside the bathroom, shower water still running.

"Good point," Alaric said, pouring them all a _real _drink.

—

Caroline, Elena and Matt stood in the girl's dorm room waiting for the cavalry to arrive. They were silent, each tossing curious glances at one another, wishing suddenly that mind-reading was a power they collectively had.

A knock came at the door and Caroline hurriedly answered.

"Whoa, whoa. Quiet now, everyone. I can barely hear myself think," Damon joked as he strode into the room.

"Glad to see the news of Bonnie being alive isn't slowing down your stand-up routine," Caroline quipped as she shuttled Alaric and Stefan inside before closing the door.

"I always knew she was alive," he told her, but the room gave him a judgemental look. "Well, I knew there was hope."

"And yet you told us all she was dead," Matt interjected.

"Why is he here?" Damon asked. "Why are you here?"

"Because Bonnie is my friend," Matt told him, taking a step toward the vampire.

"Bonnie is everyone's friend. Poor girl couldn't not be friends with people. Probably why we all took advantage of her so much."

"Excuse me?" Elena croaked out, her voice hoarse with disbelief.

"Oh no, Jeremy died, quick lets get Bonnie to save him. Gee willikers, Elena's a vampire, maybe Bonnie can use dark magic to help her out. Hope it doesn't mess her up. What Jeremy died again? It's ok, because Bonnie can sacrifice herself for him. Or you or you or even me. Dying. Becoming an anchor. Dying some more. I'm surprised the girl's even whole."

"Of course she's whole," Matt interjected.

"Yeah, I know. Which is why we need to save her," Damon continued.

"I agree," Caroline began, "with the saving part. Some of those other things, not so much."

"Disappointed you didn't get a shout out?" Damon questioned.

"How can you be like this?" Elena angrily spat. "Bonnie is somewhere right now, away from us, and you are acting like it's a joke. You wonder why all I remember when I look at you is the bad, but even now, here with you all you're making are more of the same kind of memories for me."

"Elena," Caroline softly said.

"No, Care," Elena continued. "I'm serious. What is wrong with you?"

"With me? What's wrong with me?" Damon yelled back. "I thought she was dead. I had hope that she wouldn't be, but even then, even if she was alive it meant she was in hell, without me, living each day, experiencing that hell over and over again. I didn't lie to you Matt, Elena, Caroline. I spared you the feeling of knowing she was somewhere we couldn't be, and she was suffering. You wiped all your memories of me, Elena. What would it have done to each of you to know that the last time I saw her she was crying and bleeding and in pain? That she was dying and I left her?"

Stefan stepped between the groups of three. "I think we just need to get on the same page. The Save Bonnie page."

Everyone silently agreed.

After a moment, Matt broached the topic once more. "How did you know she was alive?"

Damon responded, "A bear. And a boot."

—

After her shower, Bonnie dressed quickly, suddenly afraid to be naked anywhere within a mile of Kai, and made her way to the kitchen. Turing the corner she found him sitting at the table, a half-eaten bowl of cereal before him.

"Ah, you're awake," Kai commented. "And you look shockingly refreshed. I was sure it was going to be racoon-eye city given all the hollering I heard from your room last night."

Bonnie ignored him, leaning on the archway to the kitchen, staring him down.

"I didn't take you for a self-pleaure kind of girl, but I assume that's what you were doing while you shouted Damon's name over and over again."

"Kai, do you dream?" Bonnie asked.

"Apparently, not the way you do," he joked, trying to bait her into an argument of some kind, something to get his morning juices flowing.

"You steal magic. Can you steal anything else?"

Kai stood up and walked towards her, his mouth curled into a smile.

"Bonnie, are you asking me if I can see into your dreams?"

"No. I'm asking if you can _be_ in my dreams," she continued.

Kai laughed, a full bodied laugh, placing his hands on her shoulders, his open mouth right before her face. Catching his breath he told her, "Oh, Bonnie. Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie. You should know better than that. I'm not a super hero."

"Or super villan?"

"Sadly, no. Although I do have an outfit all picked out—"

"Kai!" she interjected.

"Whoa, Bonnie. Calm down. I promise, I'm not sneaking into your room, or should I say Damon's room, in the middle of the night and watching you sleep. Or watching you dream."

Bonnie raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not…watching."

Kai walked from the room and Bonnie let go of the breath she hand't known she had been holding.

Striding to the table, she noticed the near empty bowl of cereal at Kai's chair, but at hers there was an entirely different place setting and an entirely different breakfast. As she got closer, Bonnie's stomach dropped. There on her plate, was a perfect pancake, topped with a heart made of strawberries.


	4. Chapter 4

Bonnie knew she shouldn't have eaten those pancakes. What was she thinking? Of course they were laced with painkillers. Of course Kai was still a sociopath. Of course he brought her to Portland on his own Vision Quest for his sister's magic. And of course he left her there, bleeding and alone.

As Bonnie staggered around the outside of the Gemini Coven homestead she let it sink in…she was never going home.

—

"Are you sure this is what you want to do?" Stefan asked his older brother as they sat down on Alaric's couch, Damon putting his feet up on the coffee table.

"Are you sure you want to pretend those leftovers aren't from one Miss Forbes?" Damon asked, taking a sip of scotch.

"I wasn't pretending."

"No, but you're not spilling either," Damon stated. "I thought you were "just friends". I thought you didn't like her that way."

Stefan shook his head. "And you think my getting a doggy bag from Caroline somehow means—"

"That she's still totally into you," Damon interrupted. "And that you are probably, most certainly, totally into her."

Stefan shot his brother a dirty look, but Damon continued.

"Let yourself be happy, brother. One of us should be."

Stefan opened the small box of leftover and took out a dinner roll. Taking a tentative bite he carried on.

"Now that talking about my love life is complete—"

"Oh, no," Damon said. "It will never be complete."

Stefan couldn't help but smile. "Well, those issues aside, I think we should discuss if this is the best plan or not."

"What plan?" Damon feigned.

"The compel Alaric to do your bidding plan."

Damon finished his drink and slammed the glass on the side table.

"Hey, he's the one who compelled my girlfriend into forgetting our whole relationship," Damon practically yelled.

"I know, but keep it down," Stefan commanded. "Alaric might not be endowed with super hearing anymore, but he's out in the hall right now."

"And since I'm still endowed with super hearing, I know he's on the phone with Jo. He has no idea he's been compelled."

"He's your best friend, Damon. I just think this isn't your wisest move."

"And I think Bonnie deserves to be here with us, to be eating Thanksgiving dinner instead of…" Damon trailed off. He didn't like to think of what was happening to her _instead_.

—

"I knew there was something going on," Tyler said, pacing the insides of Caroline's dorm. "I knew it wasn't good."

"Then why didn't you tell us?" his ex-girlfriend asked, her eyebrows arching, a firm hand on her own hip.

Tyler looked to her, then back to Liv, his soon-to-be-girlfriend, and wondered what to do.

"It was my fault," Liv began.

"It was no one's fault," Tyler stated. "Damon needed our help to reach out to Bonnie—" Caroline opened her mouth to speak, but Tyler stopped her. "And we didn't tell you because at that time we weren't really sure what was going on. Beside, you both found out eventually."

Elena stood from her bed. "Yeah, we did."

"In a secret meeting I wasn't invited to, might I add," Tyler quipped.

"Yeah, that too," Elena agreed. "But you were communicating with Bonnie. Don't you think you should have told us?"

"Communicating is a strong word, Elena," Liv told her. "I'm not sure she even got the message."

"Oh, she got it," Jo stated, walking into the room unannounced, Alaric right behind her.

"How do you know that?" Liv asked, still not knowing how to act around her newly discovered sister. Her body tensed as Jo reached out for her, then thought otherwise. The awkward atmosphere put everyone off kilter.

"Mr. Mason's tombstone, right?" Jo asked.

"Yeah," Liv responded, confused.

"Damon told me," Alaric revealed, putting his hands on Jo's shoulders, letting her know he was there to support her.

"John Mason is an old Gemini Coven follower. He was welcomed into the fold after marrying a full-blooded Gemini, but he never had powers of his own," Jo began to explain. "His death destroyed his wife and she placed her magic inside the stone, Gemini magic, essentially creating a supernatural touchstone since the object exists in all realms."

"Even in the prison realm, because he's Gemini and Gemini's created it," Liv finished.

"So it's conceivable to think that Bonnie would be able to read what you wrote, because the writing itself should transcend any barriers due to the stone's magic," Jo finished.

"My head hurts," Caroline said, sitting down on the edge of her bed.

"Great, Bonnie read some message from Damon. It still doesn't mean we can free her, and it still doesn't get any of you off the hook with your crazy coven," Elena said, still reeling from the idea that her friend could return.

Both Jo and Liv looked to Elena and the vampire realized calling their family "crazy" was perhaps a tad much.

"I just mean, we have nothing else to go on," Elena said.

"We have the Ascendant," Alaric told them.

Jo whirled around and looked him in the eye, knowing that using the Ascendant would ensure Kai's freedom. She stared him down, but Alaric didn't seem to notice. His compulsion was too strong.

"We could use that to free Bonnie," Alaric continued.

"It doesn't work that way" Jo began. "And freeing her means—"

"Freeing Kai," Liv finished.

"But we have to do everything we can to get Bonnie," Alaric stated. "Right?"

Everyone in the room knew that saving Bonnie was paramount, but unlike Damon Salvatore no one was able to admit that they would free a murdering psychopath to do it.

—

Bonnie sat on the outdoor steps of Kai's family home, holding her mercilessly wounded gut, her mind reeling with "what if's" and "can't dos".

"You know, I won't leave you here," Damon told her. "Not without a fight."

He was sitting right beside her, dressed in a white t-shirt and his signature black denim jeans. He was smiling at her, a real smile, the kind he reserved for the best of times, the best of people.

Bonnie knew she was hallucinating.

"I can't talk to you," she told her illusions. "Kai will just use it to get to me."

"But Kai's not here," Hallucination Damon said, waving his arm around the expanse of the property, as if to prove his point.

"I can't keep dreaming of you, or hallucinating you, or thinking about you," Bonnie said, more to herself than to her imagination. "I have to stop...because I'm never getting out of here."

Suddenly, she was crying. Not sobbing, but the tears were flowing freely and hard as she try Bonnie could not stop them. It was exhaustion, pain, sadness and defeat. It was being so far from Mystic Falls, in space and time. So far from the real Damon, the one she wanted to talk to, to listen to, to laugh with. The real Damon that she had to admit, she desperately needed.

"All the more reason to keep me around," Hallucination Damon told her. "If you let me go, you'll be all alone. You don't want to be alone."

He was saying what she was thinking, yet again. He was the voice of her fear, her heart, and her hope.

She turned to him, eyes watered, looking deep into his being and seeing a glimpse of the real man she wanted to reach out and touch.

"I miss you," she told him.

Hallucination Damon put his arm around her, and even though it wasn't real, Bonnie let her body list to the side, imaging what it would feel like to be held by him. Imagining the warmth she would find in his embrace.

As blood dripped from her stomach onto the white porch beneath her, she sighed and let herself go into the hallucination, allowing the fantasy to overtake her.

"I miss you too," Damon told her. "I miss you so much."


	5. Chapter 5

"I already know," Jeremy Gilbert told his big sister, his arms folded before him, his Hunter muscles bulging despite never working out. Elena knew most men would be envious of his looks, jealous that they did not have what he had… that they did not have Bonnie Bennett. But sitting in the centre of the Whitmore College quad on a stone bench, Jeremy didn't seem all too worried about this former love, or all too delighted to find that she may be alive.

"I understand that Alaric told you," Elena began, "I just thought we could talk about it. I mean, I've spoken to Damon and Liv and Jo and I know more now about what is going on."

"Elena, you don't have to make sure I'm okay with this," he told her.

"I'm not," she retorted, the skin between her eyebrows furrowing as she stared at him in confusion. "I honestly thought you would want to talk about this."

"I haven't wanted to talk about this all summer. What makes you think I changed my mind?"

He was acting so cold, so cruel. Elena couldn't figure it out. Sometimes she wondered if becoming a vampire, by choice or not, had irrevocably separated her from Jeremy. She wondered what it would be like ten years, twenty years, thirty years from now…watching him grow and grow up. Watching him move on with his life, while hers stayed, well, somewhat the same.

But she had assumed that his growing would include Bonnie, the girl he loved. What had happened that she could not see?

"Jeremy, maybe if Alaric—" Elena began.

"I don't want to be compelled," he interrupted.

Elena was taken aback, mentally and physically, as his outburst caused her to move slightly away from him, her body sliding back on the bench.

"I know that. I would never want that for you," Elena explained. "I thought you could talk to him. Besides, he couldn't compel you even if you wanted him to."

"Yeah, well, you know what's best for me, don't you?"

Jeremy stood up and began to walk away.

"Jeremy?" Elena called after him, but he was quickly merging into the college crowd.

She did not follow him. She suddenly realized that she never followed. She was there to scold him, but when was the last time she was there to…well, to just _be _with him. Elena couldn't count that far back, and sadly she didn't want to. She was here now, Bonnie was alive and Jeremy Gilbert would just have to get with the program or get lost in his own world yet again.

—

Alaric awoke in Jo's bed, still fully clothed, his hair ruffled and wild. The shower was running in the adjacent bathroom and even without his vampire senses he knew Jo was inside. Inhaling deep, Alaric took stock of his situation.

A late night at Jo's apartment, after an even later night hashing things out with the "gang" in Elena's room. For a professor, he was suddenly realizing he may be spending a bit too much time in the dorms. Afterward, he had come home with Jo and spent hours talking…arguing, about how best to free Bonnie.

For some reason, all Alaric could remember was the Ascendant. That the Ascendant was the key to everything, no matter the protests Jo put up. For some reason, Alaric knew he had to get it, at any cost.

Slipping out of her bed, Alaric crept to the bedroom dresser and began to open the drawers, one by one, searching their contents. He was only vaguely aware of what the Ascendant looked like. Once Jo knew he believed it should be used, she became sketchy on it's details. Perhaps she was trying to protect him, protect everyone, from Kai…but, just like Damon had said, it felt like as if those protections meant the death of Bonnie. And Alaric couldn't have that.

Once the drawers in the bedroom were searched, under the bed checked and the closet rummaged through, Alaric moved on to the living room. Looking through Jo's desk, on her coffee table and within the books on her shelves, he was beginning to get frustrated. Where was this thing? He _needed _it.

The shower water turned off and Alaric froze. Slowly, he moved to the couch and sat down, expecting Jo to reveal herself and hoping he would just look…casual. But Jo did not come out of the bathroom. Instead, Alaric heard the hair dryer turn on and knew that with her thick mane he would have, at least, another ten minutes of searching.

But where else could he look?

Walking to his jacket, hanging next to the front door, Alaric retrieved his cell phone and dialled his most frequently called contact.

"Do you have it?" Damon said, without a greeting of any kind.

"No," Alaric told him, disappointment registering in his voice. "I need more information."

"Shoot."

"What does it look like?" Alaric asked.

"I told you. It's small and metal and has cogs and gears and junk," Damon said, clearly irritated that his description wasn't getting the job done, but unable to really give more details. Sadly, he had left all that Ascendant mumbo-Jumbo to Bonnie. Even when she had tossed the device to him, essentially saving his life, he had only looked at it for a moment. His eyes were almost solely focused on her, watching her disappear as he was enveloped in light.

"Jo seems to love knick knacks," Alaric told him, breaking Damon from envisioning Bonnie, wounded on the floor of that cave, and bringing him back to the problem at hand. "With all this stuff it's going to be hard to find. If it's even here."

"You said she had it," Damon responded.

"She does, but who knows if it's in the apartment."

Frustrated, Damon wished he was there looking himself. Instead, he decided to remind his friend of his compulsion. "Alaric, you have to find it. Do whatever it takes."

With that, Alaric hung up the phone, making his way into the kitchen to continue searching. Opening a drawer, his eyes were drawn to a tiny, golden-colored gear piece. It was out of place among the scissors, pens and note pads. And it was exactly what Damon had been saying the Ascendant was made out of. But could Jo have taken the device apart? Was that even possible? Alaric did not know, but now he had to re-search the apartment, looking for pieces instead of a whole.

"What are you doing?" Jo asked, suddenly standing beside Alaric dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt, her hair only partially dried.

Alaric had the gear on the tip of his finger and was examining it. He knew he could not hide it, and he was unsure how to spin his actions into something believable, something acceptable, after all the strife Jo had been through.

"Alaric, what are you doing?" Jo asked again.

Alaric turned to face her. "I need the Ascendant."

Jo was shocked. "We've been over that. The Ascendant means letting Kai free, and you know I can't do that."

Alaric put the gear in his pocket. "Where's the rest?" he asked.

"That's not a piece of it, Alaric," she said, a smile on her face that he could not read. Was she trying to confuse him or was she telling the truth? He had no idea, but she was also studying his face, as if she was trying to determine the same within him.

"I need it, Jo. You have to give it to me." Alaric reached out and grabbed Jo's wrist_, hard_. Jo flinched and tried to pull back, but Alaric would not let go.

"Alaric, please," she said as she struggled, but Alaric's hold on her only tightened. Looking into his eyes she could not see _him_…it was something else, someone else. She knew he was being compelled. "You have to snap out of this," she commanded him, knowing her words would not do it.

"No matter what it takes, Jo. I have to have the Ascendant. Where are the pieces?" he demanded from her, pulling her arm with him as he made his way into the other room.

Jo pressed back, but it did not matter. Alaric was determined to lead her to the pieces.

"I didn't take it apart, Alaric. There's nothing here," she told him, but again Alaric ignored her. With one hand still on her wrist he began taking drawers out of dressers, yet again, this time letting them fall to the floor. Each one crashed loudly to the hardwood, each time making Jo more and more frightened of him.

Sensing the compulsion was too strong, even for her, Jo brought her foot up the back of Alaric's leg and kicked as hard as she could. Alaric cried out, letting her go and falling to his knees. Rushing from his side, back into her bedroom, Jo quickly grabbed a box, half hidden under a pile of blankets in her closet and then rushed to the front door. Alaric, back on his feet, dashed towards her, and she was forced to push the coat rack onto him. Alaric threw it aside, but it was too late. Jo was already making her way out of the apartment and to her car.

He would have to ransack her apartment alone.

—

Bonnie sat at the kitchen table where she and Kai had just finished the worst Thanksgiving meal of all time, and that was saying something considering the_ time_ she was in.

Before her was a plate of pancakes, made by her own hand and, therefore, substandard in comparison to the hundreds Damon had made. But she had to start somewhere, especially if he wasn't coming back for her.

Taking a bite, Bonnie willed the breakfast to bring her back to a time when they were together. But all it did was make her wish she was a better cook.

Putting the fork down, then picking it up again, as if resetting the moment, Bonnie swallowed another bite...giving the fantasy another try. Again, nothing. She couldn't feel him there with her, and it scared her, so much so she didn't want to eat anymore.

Taking the plate to the sink, Bonnie inhaled sharply as the sound of a car horn startled her from her thoughts. She nearly dropped the plate, catching it just in time, as the pancakes slipped from the porcelain and onto the floor.

The car horn honked again. Then again.

Bonnie stayed still. Not sure if going out into the unknown was something she could do on a empty stomach.

"Pancakes?" Stefan asked, entering Alaric's kitchen to find Damon working at the stove.

"You want one?" Damon asked his brother.

"From you? No, thanks," Stefan joked, taking a seat at the table.

Damon brought him a plate. Two pancakes, buttered and ready to eat.

"Trust me, they're good," Damon said as he drizzled the syrup onto Stefan's meal.

"Says who?"


	6. Chapter 6

"Who would have thought there would come a time that we longed for the days of high school?" Caroline said, sitting on her dormitory bed next to Elena.

Elena was holding her cell phone, having recently turned it off after a conversation with Jo, her full-time medical advisor and some-time friend. She was disturbed and saddened to hear about what happened between Jo and Alaric. She was sure it wasn't him.

"What?" Elena asked, suddenly registering that Caroline had been talking.

Caroline shook her head, "Nothing. Don't worry about it. Tell me the plan."

"The plan?"

"Yeah, the plan. Are we going over to Jo's apartment?"

"She's not there," Elena told her, standing up and walking to her dresser, placing the cell phone on top.

"Well, we should go and talk to Alaric. Or kick his ass or something," Caroline said, hyped up after everything that had happened the last few days. Specifically, the news that Bonnie was alive. It made her want to do something, anything. Action was necessary.

"I think something's wrong with him," Elena said.

"Um, yeah. Of course there is."

"No," Elena stated, "something he can't help. It sounds like—"

"Compulsion," Caroline interrupted.

Elena nodded in agreement. "Jo said he was hell bent on getting this device to help Bonnie."

"Well, isn't that a good thing? Compulsion or not, don't we want that Ascendant-thingy too?"

"Of course we do, but Jo was very specific about not using it," Elena told her roommate. She was beginning to pace the room, back and forth in front of her dresser, stressing a hole into the hardwood with her high heel boots.

"Well, I'm sorry, but Jo isn't stuck in some parallel dimension, or past hell, or whatever it is we're calling wherever Bonnie is," Caroline stated. "And I know what you'll say. I get the whole _merging _thing. I get that Liv and Luke are in danger with their coven and that Jo doesn't want Kai out…but who cares!?"

Elena stopped pacing, her mouth agape, as she stared at Caroline.

Caroline stood up, as if to solidify her point. "I'm serious. Who cares about all that when the issue at hand is Bonnie? I hate to say it, but Damon was right. Bonnie does everything for us. We need to do this for her."

"So we go to Alaric?" Elena said.

"No. I'll go to Alaric," Caroline explained. "You need to go to the source."

—

Damon was sitting on a bench just outside Elena's Whitmore dormitory, as if he could sense he was needed and came running. Elena couldn't help but smile at the sight of him, and then stopped, wondering if it was the sheer ridiculousness of it all, or if it was a lingering feeling of her past love for him.

She didn't have time to think it through, as Damon strode toward her.

"You busy?" he asked her, once they were only a few feet away from each other.

"I was actually coming to find you," she said, stopping just in front of him. They were so close they could have easily kissed, but for the first time since Damon was back, Elena did not feel him wanting her. She didn't feel the urgency of his love for her, but rather his annoyance. With what she was not sure?

"I need your help," he told her. Then he put his hand up in her face, as if to stop speaking that had not yet begun. "And before you say anything, this is about Bonnie, not us. Okay?"

"Do you need my help re-compelling Alaric, because it obviously didn't take?" Elena quipped.

Damon raised an eyebrow, but did not miss a beat. "That compulsion is solid. It's not my fault his witchy girlfriend could spot it a mile away."

"I'm not sure that's what happened," Elena told him. "Jo called me. She sounded pretty freaked. She said Alaric got a little…"

"What?" Damon asked, now genuinely concerned.

"Aggressive," Elena finished.

"Did he hit her? Hurt her?"

"I think he yelled a bit. Scared her. Chased her."

Damon laughed. "That's all? Oh, well, boo-hoo. Bonnie's is hell with King Crazy himself, but let's make sure Doc Jo's sensitivities are all in place."

"Damon," Elena said, her voice dropping, disappointed by his remarks.

Damon knew there were times he was cruel, uncaring and cold. He knew it would always be that way. But he didn't care, and he believed if Elena was the girl he loved she wouldn't either. Not if it meant saving Bonnie.

True to his memories of her, Elena smiled.

"Alright, what do you need?" she asked.

—

For the second time in a week, Liv was sitting on the ground, surrounded by symbols of her coven, a spell book open in her lap. For the second time in a week, Damon was standing over her, needing a _favou_r, and needing it fast. Only this time, Elena was there too.

"I can't feel him," Liv told Damon.

"Okay, so what now?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. Jo warned me about all this," Liv said, obviously disappointed in herself for getting roped into Damon's plight yet again.

"You said you could try to link yourself to Kai, to see through him, get a picture of what's going on there," Damon said, now crouching on the ground before her. Liv was taken aback, Damon was having a conversation with her, not yelling or screaming or accusing, but down on the same level, trying to figure it all out.

"I said I would try, but even though Kai is blood, I barely knew him and the trauma of what happened has blocked out a lot of memories. I'm just not as connected to him as I could be," Liv said.

"Then who is?" Damon asked.

"Jo, maybe."

"She'll never go for this," Elena chimed in. "Like Liv said, she warned against doing this."

"No, no," Damon told them, standing again. "She warned against using the Ascendant, using Liv and Luke to get to Bonnie. That's not what we're doing. If all goes to plan we'll just _see _Bonnie. Maybe if we can see through Kai into their realm we'll know if she's okay."

"I don't know how that will help get her back," Elena said. She wasn't sure if she meant it to be a silent comment to herself, but it did not end up that way.

"Don't you want to know if she's okay?" Damon asked, incredulous.

"Of course I do," she spat back. "But this won't help us rescue her. Why are you so concerned about how she is, instead of how to get her out?"

"Maybe I want to make sure I'm not wasting my time. Make sure she's still alive," Damon said.

Elena sighed. "We both know that's not true."

Little-by-little Elena was resigning herself to the knowledge that Damon and Bonnie were much closer than she once thought. Maybe closer than she liked.

"There might be something we can try," Liv said, but she was suddenly interrupted by the opening of her dorm room door. Tyler busted in, followed closely by Caroline. She mouthed the words "I'm sorry" to Elena, but it was too late.

"This ends now," Tyler barked.

"Tyler!" Liv yelled back, but he ignored her, walking directly into Damon's space, face-to-face.

"You are not going to use her again. You want to help Bonnie, then find another guinea pig," he told the vampire.

"Back off Wolfie," Damon told him, recognizing the beating, blood-filled artery in his neck. "You get too angry and you might trigger something."

"Tyler, come on," Liv said, now standing and pulling on his arm to get the two men away from one another.

Tyler relented and followed Liv out into the dormitory hallway.

"What are you doing?" Liv asked him, once they were away from the prying eyes of the group, although she knew their prying ears were still perked.

"You heard what Jo said about using the Ascendant."

"That's not what we're doing."

"Well, anything that could bring Kai out—"

"That's not what we're doing!" she repeated.

"Yeah, but—"

"No, buts Tyler," Liv said. She then leaned in, very quickly, and kissed Tyler on the lips. He was shocked, his eyes still open, his body stiff.

Before he knew it, the kiss was over and he felt sorry he could not have eased into it, truly enjoying the moment.

Liv was smiling. "Thank you for looking out for me. I know I tell you not to, but—"

"You're welcome," Tyler said.

Liv chuckled. "But you have to trust me, okay? I'm not bringing Kai out. I'm trying to make sure he hasn't hurt Bonnie."

Tyler nodded, taking Liv's hand in his own, trying to show her support and warmth. Trying to silently apologize.

—

"I'm ready, if you are," Liv said, as she entered the room, Tyler close behind.

"Ready for what?" Caroline asked.

"I don't think my connection to Kai is strong enough to see what's going on there, but there's a chance one of you is close enough to Bonnie," Liv explained.

"Meaning, you can see through Bonnie instead of Kai?" Damon asked, a little dumbstruck that he had not thought of that before. His connection to Bonnie was extreme. They had survived four months of solitary confinement together. They had lived with only the other for comfort, support, laughter, conversation and entertainment. They had eaten pounds of pancakes, side by side. Their bond was unbreakable now, and he knew it.

"So you'll need one of us?" Caroline questioned, motioning to herself and Elena, Bonnie's two best friends.

"I guess," Liv said. "It's really up to you."

"Maybe Jeremy," Tyler added and Damon shot him a look of disgust.

"I don't think he's the right choice," Elena said. Tyler looked over to her, questioning the comment with his eyes, but Elena did not elaborate.

After an awkward moment, Caroline chirped in again. "So, Elena, it's you or me."

"Or me," Damon added.

Everyone looked at him. There were too many eyes on him for Damon to really decipher what they were all thinking.

"Really? You?" Caroline asked.

"They got close," Elena said. Damon looked at her, wondering if she was hurt by that fact. Wondering if the _glimmer _of love inside her could be growing.

"Well, I mean, it sounds like what Liv is looking for is something more than just _close_," Caroline quipped.

"How would you know?" Damon snapped.

"Guys, this isn't helping," Elena told them. "Let's just pick someone and take a swing at it."

"It's not just a swing," Liv said. "It's more like a swing and a hit. This spell is really powerful. It's going to take a lot."

"You never said that," Tyler remarked, turning her to look at him. "I don't want you to do something that's going to jeopardize your safety."

"That's called life, Tyler. Let her live it, okay?" Damon said.

Before Tyler could respond, Liv continued. "If it was me, trying to get inside Kai, then yes, eventually it would take a lot out of me. In this version, I'm using a conduit to get into Bonnie. So, it's not me I'm worried about."

Liv turned back to the group of three.

"Oh," Caroline suddenly understood. "It's going to take a lot out of one of us…whoever decides to do it."

"What, exactly, is _a lot_?" Damon asked.

"I don't know. Without a blood connection it could be bad," Liv said. "I need to drain your energy to get to Bonnie; delve into your memories of her and try to forge a connection."

Everyone was silent, wondering what to do, when to begin.

"Okay," Damon said, breaking the silence by clapping his hands together. "Let's get started."

He walked to the middle of the room and sat down, in perfect position for Liv to sit before him and do the spell.

Liv looked at the girls and found no objection, so she sat down across from Damon, repositioned her spell book and then took the vampire's hands.

Just as she was about to begin, Elena interrupted them. "Wait."

She walked to Damon and put her hand on his shoulder.

"No," Damon told her.

"Yes," Elena said. "It has to be me. I know you and Bonnie… have _something_, but we go back years. We have a history you can't contend with."

"Elena," Damon croaked out, realizing what she wanted to do.

"Liv said she's going to use our memories. I may not have any good memories of you, and for that I am sorry, but I have so many memories of Bonnie. The good, the bad…and—"

"The great," Caroline interrupted, smiling.

"Yes. So many great ones," Elena reassured her. "So, please Damon, let me do this if you want it done right."

Damon could not move, didn't want to. He was torn between helping Bonnie and helping Elena help Bonnie. Finally, after scanning her determined eyes, Damon relented and stood up. Elena nodded her approval and took his place on the floor.

—

Liv could see trees, a white porch and land stretching acres and acres to the woods. It appeared to be idyllic, but she knew that couldn't truly be the case. Looking down, she could see blood. It must be pouring from Bonnie's gut.

"Is she okay?" Damon asked. It was the third time he had asked since the spell had started, and his question was still unanswered. Caroline shushed him again.

Focusing on her work, Liv pulled more energy from Elena, filtering out the memories of a school dance, a sleepover and a sisterly hug, with the house just beyond it. Struggling to grasp what was present for Bonnie and a memory for Elena, Liv narrowed her vision onto the house. She believed Bonnie was there. And she believed she recognized it.

Elena exhaled, sounding drained, as Liv pulled more, making the picture cleared in her own mind.

Liv was seeing the Gemini Coven family home; seeing it through Bonnie's eyes in 1994. It was the home Kai had tried to murder her in. The home Liv had told herself she never wanted to see again.

Now she was walking up its porch, as Bonnie, slow and in pain. Now she was entering it, scanning the rooms for a place to lay down. Settling on a couch in the front room, Liv's vision tilted up to the ceiling as Bonnie laid down. Liv wondered if Bonnie was resigning herself to her wounds. Was she giving up?

And where was Kai?

Liv had no answers, and in an attempt to get them, she decided to pull more energy, to see more of Bonnie, not just her vision, but her thoughts and memories too. How did she get hurt? How hurt was she? Liv knew she had to find out.

But it was something she had never attempted before. Elena was strong, though, she could feel it. Liv hoped that if anyone could handle the magic, it was the Gilbert vampire.

Elena grimaced. She could feel Liv pulling more energy from her, and without knowing what the witch could see, it scared her. Was the spell working? Could she see if Bonnie was okay? Elena wanted to open her mouth to ask, but something prevented her. Weakness. She felt so weak. She wondered if Liv knew she wasn't as strong as she let on.

Liv filtered out visions of Bonnie revealing herself as a witch to Elena, of Bonnie kissing Elena's little brother Jeremy, of Bonnie taking on the world and winning and losing and winning again. She was trying to hone in on Bonnie's here and now, but it wasn't working. She couldn't get beyond the vision of the ceiling of her family home. Liv was worried. Bonnie was just staring at it, not moving, not trying to help herself. What could she do?

Suddenly, startled, Bonnie whipped her head to the side, sending Liv's vision straight onto the sight of a knife. She could feel Bonnie scream.

Elena began to scream as well, shocking everyone in the room.

"Stop it!" Caroline commanded Liv, not knowing what was going on. As she moved toward the pair, Damon rushed to her side and pushed her back, slamming her against the wall hard. "Damon!"

Damon hurried back to Liv's side. "What do you see? Is Bonnie okay?"

"We need to stop this," Tyler told him.

Elena continued to scream, as if stuck in a loop, and Liv was not letting go.

"Tyler, we have to do something," Caroline said.

"You do and you die," Damon barked. He sounded serious. The threat sounded true. "I need to know about Bonnie. What's happening to her?!"

"_Her_?" Caroline questioned. "What's happening to Elena?"

Looking at Elena, Damon could see the colour draining from her face, her eyes rolling back into her skull. Liv, on the other hand, looked strong, confident and determined. She would not speak. She would not move. She just continued to drain Elena's energy and Elena continued to scream.

His head swirling with competing thoughts and contradictory feelings, Damon made a split second decision and threw his body onto Elena's, pushing her back, breaking her from Liv and stopping the spell.

Tyler ran to Liv. She was panting and confused, not sure what had happened or how the spell had gotten so out of control.

Caroline ran to Elena, hovering over Damon.

"Is she okay?" Caroline asked.

Damon moved aside and Caroline could see that Elena was anything but okay. She way grey, frail, her eyes open, unblinking and staring straight ahead.

"Elena?!" Damon called to her, shaking her body, trying to revive her from the spell.

Elena did not respond.


	7. Chapter 7

Standing in the doorway to the Salvatore Mansion, a home he never would have believed could help heal his broken heart, Damon starred out into the night scanning the yard for the mysterious visitor who had just rang his bell.

He couldn't see Elena, cloaked by Kai, laying slumped on the porch, her body crumpled against the hard stone, her attacker standing almost nose to nose with the vampire she was just starting to like again.

Shaking his head in defeat, Damon closed the door on a demonic, smiling Kai.

xxxx

Just three weeks before, Damon sat on the edge of Elena's bed as she slept off her encounter with Liv and the visions of Bonnie circa 1994. The drain it had placed on her body and mind was enormous and on the fourth day of his vigil Damon was sure his quest to free Bonnie had clocked its first victim.

Just after it had happened, after Elena was left lying on the floor, her face grey, her features etched in pain and fear, Damon sprang into action. He had comforted Stefan, when it was really _he_ who needed the comforting. He had assured Caroline he was doing everything possible to solve the problem. He yelled at Liv and threated Jo, all in an effort to fix her.

He was unravelling, suddenly finding himself at the end of his rope, until finally, just a few hours ago, Elena called out "Damon" in her sleep-state and slowly, but surely, he knew she was beginning to pull out of whatever it was he had gotten her pulled in to in the first place.

The color in her skin was returning and he breathed a sigh of relief, but it was tinged with guilt.

Whatever had happened to Elena was because of Bonnie, or something that had happened to her. If it took Elena four days to even begin to recover, he knew somewhere Bonnie was worse off, maybe even-

Damon shook his head, as if shaking out the morbid thought. He didn't want to think of Bonnie, only because for the first time in a long time, he was certain he couldn't help her. No amount of banter or breaking the rules or stuffing his face with pancakes was working. In fact, he was sure he was making it worse.

Taking Elena's hand in his own, he waited anxiously for the storm inside them both to pass.

xxxx

Bonnie awoke, screaming and sweating and soaked in fear. She was in the high school auditorium, but it took her more than a moment to adjust to the surroundings and remember what she was doing there.

It was Christmas back home. A tree was burning itself out in the parking lot. And she was exhausted and sore and ready to call it quits.

Every night since Kai left her in his childhood home in Portland, she would awake from a nightmare. They were always the same: Kai was killing her. Trying to stave off the visions, Bonnie attempted to stay awake, but even then she would hear his car horn honking, signaling his return to do her harm, or feel his breath on the back of her naked neck, letting her know she would never be free of him. She even thought she could see him with that knife, the one that gutted her, but it was only a horrific mirage. Everywhere she went, everything she did, everything she thought...it was all tainted by Kai.

After months in 1994 and now weeks without Damon, Bonnie wasn't sure how long she could go on.

She had said it before, to herself and to her visions of Damon. She had been ready to call it quits and then somehow he pulled her back, with magic and mystery and hope. The vision of him was keeping her going, but sadly she hadn't seen him in days. She tried and tried to think him into existence again, to almost feel him hug her, like she imagined he did on that porch as she bled. But he was nowhere to be found.

Watching the tree burn, watching the lights pop in the intense heat signaled the first time she really wondered what it would feel like to burn herself. Suicide. How could she have ended up there?

Marching from the auditorium, forcing herself to believe that a change of location would equal a change of attitude, Bonnie ended up back outside, enveloped in the warm Mystic Falls night. There was nowhere to go, but home.

xxxx

"What are you doing?" Stefan asked, finding Damon in his leather chair, before the fireplace, cradling a drink in his hand like a villain in a Bond movie.

"Getting drunk, little brother. Why? What does it look like?"

"Like you're upset Elena didn't show."

"What?" Damon scoffed. "No, never."

"Like you're kicking yourself for not letting her get hurt."

"She's a big girl. She knew the risks," he said, taking the last gulp of alcohol.

"Like you miss Bonnie, more than you want to let anyone know."

Damon didn't respond. Stefan took the decanter from the table and walked the length of the room to fill his brother's glass. Damon reached out to take it, switching Stefan for his glass, so they could both drink. Clinking the items together the brothers settled in across from one another and drowned their sorrows, and everything else.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"You always ask me that," Damon told him.

"Yeah?"

"And do I ever say yes?"

Stefan smiled to himself. "I think, you need someone to keep asking...just in case."

"Bonnie never had to ask," he blurted out, his speech not nearly slurred, but his tongue was noticeably looser and free. "I could just talk and talk and talk to her. And she would just listen. No matter what."

Stefan nodded, as if he understood, but the truth was he and Bonnie had never gotten close. But he did know she cared more than anyone he had ever met, including Caroline, which was saying quite a lot. So, sitting back in his chair, Stefan closed his eyes and he could easily imagine the scene Damon was painting: one of his brother running his mouth and Bonnie being too good to shut him down.

"Don't get me wrong, she talked too. And she would put me in my place if I got too...out of line. But about Elena, she would let me talk for hours."

Finishing the bottle, Damon stood up.

"And now, she has no one."

_"And whose fault is that?!"_ Kai screamed from the landing by the front door. He was carrying a shovel, perched up on his shoulder, his legs planted firm and wide, his power evident, if only it could be seen by the Salvatore brothers.

"You can't blame yourself," Stefan told Damon.

_"Oh, yes, yes he can,"_ Kai interjected, even though it went unheard. _"If you had just let us all leave with the Ascendant she would be here right now! Or maybe I would have killed you both once I figured out the huge benefits of draining the stupid anti-magic border...I don't know. But that's not the point, is it?"_

Kai rushed over to Damon's side as he switched out his bottle for a new, full one.

_"The point is, drinking won't bring her back and it certainly won't make me any less pissed with you. So now, you know what? I'm gonna-"_

"I think Jo is the key," Damon said.

_"Don't interrupt, Damon. It's rude,"_ Kai quipped. _"I'm going to-"_

"I don't know," Stefan replied. "You've gone down that road before. She didn't have the Ascendant. She wouldn't help with the spells and now she's preparing for a duel to the death with her psychotic twin brother. I think her mind, and powers, are elsewhere."

_"Stop interrupting!"_ Kai shouted, his voice strangling the air in the room. Damon felt a chill up his back and he turned around, sure he would see something, someone, but Kai was securely cloaked.

"With her powers back, she's the best bet we have."

Stefan stood to join his brother. "And with his ability to think for himself back, Alaric is never going to let you go near her."

"Alaric? I don't think that will be an issue," Damon said mockingly.

_"Oh. My. God. What are you two talking about?"_ Kai bemoaned, talking a seat in one of the vacant leather chairs.

"It should be an issue," Stefan told him. "He's your best friend. He's died, well a lot, and he came back from a hellish experience to...what? To have you use him?"

Damon didn't respond.

"I just think you need to go about this another way."

_"What way?"_ Damon and Kai said simultaneously.

_"She's stuck! Move on!"_ Kai cried_. "And soon enough I'm going to merge with Jo and consume this whole town. Now that I think of it, Bonnie's lucky she's there and not here, because soon I'm going to kill everyone you love Damon and watch you slowly die inside as you realize it's your fault."_

Kai relaxed in the chair, wishing there was something he could put his feet up on. _"Now who wants to pass me a drink?"_

_xxxx_

"I could feel her, Caroline. I'm sure it was her," Elena said, lying in bed, resting after her ordeal with Liv and the spell gone wrong.

"No, it was something else," Caroline said, trying to sound convincing, but failing miserably.

"It was her. I'm telling you-"

"No!" Caroline spat out.

"Caroline?"

"If it was her then that means she's-"

Elena reached out her hand and Caroline took it, finding a spot on the bed with her, they held one another. Suddenly, Caroline began to cry. She was losing so much, so fast. Too fast.

"She's not dead," Elena said. "It was painful, but I'm here, so she's here."

Elena knew the logic in that statement was lost, but crazier things had happened to her and her friends. Besides, Elena could only feel Bonnie's fear, her pain, or at least she thought she could. She couldn't really see anything, and Liv was no help, she claimed everything was too "blurry" to make out.

So who was Elena to say what caused that fear? Maybe it was dream. Maybe it was an old injury.

Maybe it was Kai torturing her.

_No! _she told herself. It wasn't that. It could never be that.

Bonnie, left alone with the man-child an entire coven of witches was afraid of, a person who murdered children and nearly murdered Bonnie by knifing her in the gut in front of Damon's eyes: that thing, that psycho would have her to answer to if he did anything else to Bonnie.

Even sitting, nearly immobile in bed, her strength just barely clawing its way back, Elena knew she would trade places with her friend in an instant, if it meant getting her back to present day Mystic Falls.

xxxx

"Wakey, wakey," Kai said, slapping Elena on the face. "We've got a lot to do today."


	8. Chapter 8

AUTHOR'S NOTE: _Sorry for the lack of updates through November and December. I was dealing with a family issue, but am now back and ready to get my TVD Fanfiction groove on. For those who are confused, I want to point out that in my story Elena was drained by a spell gone wrong, a spell to see/feel/potentially connect with Bonnie and whatever she was going through in 1994. Elena healed, slowly and it brought her (kinda) closer to Damon through his vigil at her bedside (there will be more about that in this chapter). At the same time, the events of TVD that highlight Kai's return did happen in my story, using Jo's magic found in Portland, and he did drain the anti-magic border around Mystic Falls (I didn't write about it mainly because it would be repetitive and because I thought that aspect of the show was great – I'm a fan of how crazy Kai is). He is now back and has cloaked himself and Elena. What I left out from the show was Damon and Elena's return to 1994 using Jo's Ascendant, mainly because I felt it was a devastating misdirect on the part of the show and because sometimes I can't stand Jo and her flip-flopping ways. So in Pancakes, a knife to the gut has wounded Bonnie, but she is healing (slowly and without real medical care), she burned down that Christmas tree (like in the show) and is now wondering what to do without Damon… while Damon and the gang are coming to terms with Kai's return and the soon-to-be merge of he and Jo. Thanks for reading... now on with the Pancakes._

xxxx

She tasted like maple syrup, spiked with sweat. She was floral and feral; sweet, yet so unbelievably sexy. She was all things at all times and it made him so crazy he could barely remember where his hands had been as they moved to the next incredible cushion of silky skin. He grabbed at her waist, pulling her closer until the air between them died, leaving lust in its wake, two naked bodies pressed into one another, hungry to be held and kissed. Her moans filled the space, echoing off the rich wood furniture of his room, as his right hand found its way under the useless sheet and between her quivering thighs.

"Damon," she whispered in his ear, just before nibbling on his hot skin, sending shivers down his back. He arched into her and they fell into place on the bed, wrapped in one another, each too afraid to be the first one to let go.

She reached up and let her hands run into his messy brown hair, pulling tightly back to expose his face. A wicked grin played across his lips before she kissed him, mashing her own smooth skin into his, her tongue pressing inward making him eager with anticipation.

Suddenly, she pulled away, and for a moment he felt himself grow scared and sad. Maybe she didn't like it, maybe she wanted to stop. Instead, she looked into his eyes, her mouth curled into a smile of pleasure and joy.

"I love you," she said, before plunging back to his mouth, kissing him deep, forcing the desire to run rampant through his veins.

"I love you too."

"Damon?"

"Yes," he said back, his hands grasping for something more to hold.

"Damon?"

He eyes flew open, the room was awash in afternoon sunlight. He was alone in bed, naked and panting, a sheet barely covering his manhood.

"Damon?" Stefan called from the other side of the door.

"Yeah," Damon shouted back, his throat hoarse. "What do you need?"

"Caroline is here. Something is going on with Elena," Stefan told him.

Damon knew, with his ability to hear so strongly heightened, that his baby brother was aware of the moans escaping his own erotic dream and into real life. He was thankful then, that Stefan did not open the door, instead preferring to give Damon a bit of dignity.

"I'll be right down," Damon called out.

"Take your time," Stefan said, chuckling as he walked back down the stairs.

Damon lay back in bed, calming his body and mind.

What was that? he wondered, because it was incredible.

xxxx

Bonnie awoke in Damon's bed, wrapped tightly in his sheets, savoring the comfort of an extremely high thread count, not wanting to get up. But the wound on her side needed attention, she had been neglecting it for far too long, perhaps hoping it would swallow her whole with infection. It hadn't and it was time to clean up for another day in 1994.

In the shower, Bonnie gently cleansed around the wound as blood slowly leaked from the parts that had yet to scab over. She took a sharp inhale of breath each time water hit the spot directly and for a moment she felt she would fall in pain, grabbing onto the glass shower door, her hand sliding in the hot steam, blood on her fingers.

Staring at the mess she was making, Bonnie knew there was no need to clean it up. Tomorrow was another day, another same day and so she left the blood on the door and shower floor behind.

Getting back into bed, her body naked and wet, she let her hand glide over the space next to her: the space she wished was occupied by another person.

Where was he, real or imagined, when she needed him?

"And you didn't see her?" Caroline asked, for the third time.

"Caroline, I don't know how else you want me to explain this to you," Damon replied, frustrated. "I did not see her. I haven't seen her. I have no plans to see her."

"You did have plans. She was coming over here," Caroline reminded the brothers. "Weren't you a little worried when she didn't show up?"

"After she erased all her memories of me? Hmmm, let me think," he mockingly put a hand to his head, as if forcing faster, more accurate thinking. "Nope. I'm not worried."

He was lying. He was worried. He was always worried about Elena, and both Stefan and Caroline knew that, but Damon just couldn't start another plan, another rescue mission, he knew he could fail.

"I don't understand you sometimes," Caroline spat out. She turned to Stefan, but he had no answers for her. "I need to go back to the hospital to see my mom, so one of you needs to get on this."

"I will," Stefan said. "We will," he continued, motioning to Damon. Caroline raised an eyebrow, not convinced. "I promise."

Caroline eased. "She's had it rough lately, with that whole Bonnie spell, and I want to make sure she's okay."

"Maybe she needed some space," Stefan replied, a lazy excuse because he wasn't sure Elena would give up a chance to see Damon, whether she had compelled away her love for him or not.

"Maybe she doesn't want to tell us what really happened… what she really saw," Damon said quietly, as if he had just now realized that could be true. He had asked and asked, but Elena used the same line Liv had: "it was blurry." It had ended in them having a fight.

But he had returned after storming off, and standing just outside her door he had overheard her talking to Caroline. It hadn't been that blurry; it hadn't been that confusing. She felt something painful. Bonnie's pain. And now, he thought, she was hiding in order to avoid his inquisition.

Caroline opened her mouth to object to Damon's accusation, but Stefan held his hand up and shook his head. Caroline sighed in defeat and walked away, leaving the Salvatore home.

xxxx

"Damon?" Elena said, gently shaking Damon's hand, rousing him from his sleep. He was leaning over Elena's bed, his head awkwardly resting on the blankets next to Elena's covered thigh. She was resting after her ordeal with Liv and she somehow knew that Damon had been there the whole time. Well, maybe not he whole time. He had probably taken bathroom breaks and a few jaunts to scream and threaten people into helping her, but besides that she knew he had been there.

Looking up into her eyes, his own bleary from sleep, Damon smiled. "Hey, you're awake. And looking good."

Elena laughed and noticed that the pain, the wear and tear on her body, was easing nicely.

"I was worried about you," he told her.

"I figured," she replied, motioning to his current state, nestled next to her bed, precariously leaning forward on a chair.

Damon straightened out and pushed in, bringing the chair closer to her. He reached up and cupped her face in his hand, gently letting his thumb run along her cheek.

"You scared me," Damon whispered.

Elena pulled back, suddenly overtaken by memories of the spell and of her friends rushing to her aid after it all went wrong. She could hear Damon slamming Tyler up against that wall, railing at them all to connect to Bonnie, not to stop the spell, no matter what. The memory came in a flash, and it was hazy, but Elena was sure she knew what Damon was really scared about.

"I know, we're not us, but I'm here for you," he told her, his eyes sincere. Maybe he could be worried about both of them Elena thought, maybe he had feelings, and a heart, this version of herself never knew existed.

"Thank you," she replied, taking his hand in her own. "It does mean something to me, knowing you're here and that you care. I mean, no one else is." She gestured around her empty dorm room.

"Oh, that one's my fault. Everyone was crowding in. Matt just wouldn't shut up about ice-skating or hot chocolate or some lame memory of you two. And Caroline's sighing was getting out of control."

"And Jeremy?" Elena asked.

Damon shook his head. "Caroline called him, told him, but he just never came around."

Elena dropped her head, but Damon pushed it up gently by the tip of his finger on her delicate chin.

"He's going through something… or at least that's what Matt says," Damon said, surprised he was understanding the littlest Gilbert in some small way.

Losing Bonnie was a pain Damon had not been prepared for, and after all she sacrificed for him it hurt even more. Thinking of what the Bennett witch had given up for Jeremy, well, Damon realized, it must have sent him into total despair. Still, even then, Damon was sure he'd continue to search for Bonnie. So understanding Jeremy didn't mean he agreed.

"What are you thinking?" Elena asked and Damon realized he hadn't said anything in a while.

"Uh, just about how hard it must be on Jeremy," he told her, the words sounding so foreign in the air around them.

"I guess," Elena replied, confused. "But it's been hard on all of us… without Bonnie."

"But he loved her. It's different when you love her. You just can't understand unless—" Damon stopped himself, not sure what he was really trying to say, and not sure if he really wanted to say it to Elena.

There it was, Elena knew. Part two of why Damon had kept his vigil. It was Bonnie he was worried about.

Elena began shifting from the bed, trying to get up.

"Whoa, whoa. Take it easy," Damon told her, trying to get her back down, but Elena was adamant she wanted up and out.

"It's fine, Damon. I'm just exhausted. It's not like I've been stabbed or anything."

As soon as she said it, she regretted it.

Damon narrowed his eyes at her. "Why would you say that?"

"I know—"

"Why would you even want to think about that?"

"Damon, I said I know. I'm sorry—"

"What did you see, exactly?" Damon questioned, his voice raising. "Was she still hurt? What else did Kai do to her?"

Elena found her footing and walked to her dresser, pulling out a long cardigan and wrapping it around her form. She turned to look back at Damon, and she could immediately see the urgency and fear in his eyes.

"Damon… it was all so blurry, so hazy."

"That's fucking bullshit and you know it!" he cried out, and before they both knew it Stefan was bounding through the door and quickly entering the room.

"What's going on?" Stefan asked, his body taking up the doorway, his eyes scanning for signs of trouble.

Damon laughed. "How long have you been sitting out there?"

Stefan did not answer. He looked to Elena, silently willing her to confirm that she was indeed all right. Elena nodded and Stefan eased.

"Looks like you had two Salvatore brothers on watch tonight," Damon continued.

"I'm here for Caroline. She's can't be in two places at once," Stefan replied, closing the door behind him so that all three were in the dorm room, each starring one another down. "She had classes and Christmas prep and her mom isn't feeling well. She wanted to make sure you were okay."

Elena smiled warmly at Stefan.

"And whose making sure Bonnie is okay?" Damon asked, cutting the moment in two. "What did you see?"

"Damon, please. I'm tired," she told him.

"You just said you were fine," he spat back.

"Well, now I'm tired!" Elena screamed in response. "I didn't see anything. I didn't feel anything. She's fine Damon. The spell just backfired. But she's fine."

Elena was lying. They all knew it.

"Let's go, okay?" Stefan said to Damon, taking him back the shirt sleeve and pulling him away.

When they reached the door, Damon turned back and looked at Elena, his eyes piercing her deep.

"I really was worried about you," he told her, knowing her fears and knowing he could do nothing to ease them without Elena's memories of the real Damon.

Elena watched Stefan and Damon make their way from campus through her dorm window, then she texted Caroline to come home. She had felt Bonnie, and it hadn't felt good.

xxxx

Damon shook away the memory of his hand on Elena's cheek and plopped down in his favorite chair.

"Is that it for today?" Stefan asked.

"Just like yesterday, little brother," Damon said, putting his hands up in defeat.

"Was she coming over?"

"Who?"

"Elena."

Damon sat up in his chair, looking his brother in the eye. "She said she wanted to see me, with everything that was going on. Wanted to talk it all out after what happened in her dorm room. It sounded like..."

"Like she meant it?" Stefan finished.

Damon nodded.

"Then what makes you think she would just hide out? Does that really sound like Elena to you?"

"I'm not sure anymore. She's hot and cold. Loves me one minute and hates me the next. What's a guy to do?"

"You could stop making stupid jokes," Stefan told him. "And come out with me to look for her. Mystical Falls is finally open to us, and to her. She could be anywhere."

Damon let his body drift back down into the comfort of the chair. For a moment, he thought about getting a drink, but even with his super speed he couldn't be bothered to get up.

"You were thinking about her this morning," Stefan finally said.

"Excuse me?" Damon questioned.

"Sorry, brother, but I could hear you, uh... how should I say... being pleasured in your sleep," Stefan let out between smiles.

"That's how you should say it?" Damon scoffed, finally relenting and rising. "Very smooth."

"If you're having those kinds of dreams about her, obviously there's something there," Stefan told him, his eyebrow raised.

"I have those dreams about everyone, okay? Kate Upton, that girl from the Ramones concert in '82, or was it '83, sometimes Sheriff Forbes," Damon said wickedly.

Stefan scowled.

"What? I like a woman in control... with a gun... and handcuffs," he laughed. "Sex dreams are just that. Thinking with my dick while sleeping doesn't equal-"

"Love?" Stefan questioned. "Because we both know you still love her. I even thought I heard you say it in that dream: "I love you too". So, don't tell me that was your dick talking. Now, come on, let's go find Elena."

Damon turned to his brother, his eyes downcast, his playful smile gone.

"The thing is, I don't think I was dreaming about Elena."


	9. Chapter 9

"Kai, what do you want with me?" Elena asked, her hands and feet tied to a chair at the end of a long wooden table. Kai sat calmly on the other side, as if they were the host and hostess of some sick, perverted dinner party that had yet to begin.

"I think we both know what I want," he said to her, twirling a knife in his hand, letting the tip of the sharp blade poke at his fingers playfully, all the while keeping his gaze firmly locked on Elena.

"You want to merge and kill Jo and everyone else and have power and take revenge," Elena spat out, struggling uselessly with the ropes. She was strong, very strong, and her attempts to break free were proving useless. There must be magic involved, she thought.

Kai leaned forward on his elbows, the knife now placed beside him on the oak table, the blade staring straight at Elena. With all his new-found power, one flick of his wrist could send that blade into her heart, and they both knew it.

"You're right, I do want all those things, but let's take a step back to that one about the_ merging_," Kai said. "I haven't been around for a while, what with being stuck in the Land of Flannel with your witchy, bitchy friend Bonnie. And she never wanted a piece of me, but since I know you like your men a little crazy I thought we could..." he winked at her, a sly grin playing on his baby-face.

"What?" Elena cried, confused. "Why would I ever do that with you?"

"Oh, did I forget to mention the why?" Kai said, standing. He reached down and grabbed something from the floor, at the edge of the table, beyond Elena's limited view. Heaving it, his back strained, Kai suddenly remembered his magic and used it to lob the object onto the table.

It was a body, and it thumped down on the wood with a huge bang, jolting Elena and amusing Kai.

"Do you like it?" he asked, waving his hands over the body as if highlighting the prize on a game show.

The body looked beaten and bloodied, its face burnt, skin curled. Elena recoiled, gasping in shock as the real horror of what she was seeing took hold.

"Forgive me, but it seems I don't quite understand this world. I've been away for so long, frustrated and alone. I'm just fumbling my way through, not sure what to say, what to do," Kai walked the length of the table while talking, until he was directly behind Elena. "I mean, it's been so long since I've felt the touch of a woman..." he let his hand roll through her hair and she snapped her head away. "I was forced to take out my frustrations on something else."

"Fuck you!" Elena shouted.

Kai laughed loudly, and it boomed across the room startling her into silence. "Oh god, I'm playing with you, but I guess you really are full of yourself, huh? Makes sense. You think I did this to that guy," he said, pointing at the body, "because I haven't been laid in two decades?"

"Well, you are a psychopath," she cried out.

"Now, now, name calling isn't necessary," Kai said, leaning on the table before her. "I'm coming to you hat-in-hand. All this Traveler's magic is really messing me up, I think I need help. And, like you said, I need to merge, and since you're a frigid bitch I better stick to merging with Jo for world domination's sake and not concern myself with your deluded fantasies of taking a trip to a B & B with me."

Disgusted, Elena spit at him, her mucus landing on the top of his shoe.

Kai put his hand up, as if to caress her face, but then quickly and violently pushed her head away making the chair fall flat on the floor with Elena still tied to it and helpless to stop the descent. She winced, back on the hardwood, feet and hands still bound, her face registering how confused and scared she really was.

Standing over her, Kai continued. "You help me figure out my powers or you'll end up like that guy. Now, was that clear enough for you?"

xxxx

"Are you going to be alright?" Stefan asked, as he packed his car with one last bag.

"I thought you were going to North Carolina, not on a three month excursion across the country. What is all this shit?" Damon questioned, taking note of the four bags in the back seat of the vehicle.

"I don't know how long this is going to take or where we'll end up," Stefan replied. "I just want to be prepared."

"Famous last words, brother," Damon told him before slapping Stefan on the back as they stood in the sun drenched driveway of the Salvatore home. "You and Caroline be careful."

"I know. We will," Stefan turned away, about to enter the car, then turned back, concern on his face. "It's time sensitive, with Liz being sick. I wouldn't go if-"

"I'll find Elena. And Ric and Liv are working with Jo to make her all strong or confident or 'I am woman, hear me roar'. So, we have it covered. You gotta go figure out how to save Liz. Caroline needs you. "

"You need me," Stefan said.

"Whoa, now," Damon chuckled.

"Seriously, call me if you need anything," Stefan said once again.

Damon caught him by the arm and looked him in the eye. "Why all the worry?"

"I just got you back. I don't want you to do something stupid in order to save Elena... or Bonnie, and I lose you again."

Damon leaned in and hugged his brother.

"You can't get rid of me that easily."

xxxx

The sheets beneath her were wet with tears, sweat and blood. Bonnie hadn't moved from her spot in Damon's bed for more than a day and yet, she was still tired. And sore. And hungry. And just plain done.

"You really need to do more than just clean that thing out," Hallucination Damon said and Bonnie shot up lighting fast, scanning the room for the source of his voice. But her quick movement sent slices of pain through her side and she cried out in agony.

Looking up, through her messy brown hair, she could see a vision of him standing in the doorway. He was smiling at her.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"You tell me," he replied, walking closer, until he was crouched beside the bed, inches from her face.

Bonnie laid back, her hand to her wounded belly. She turned her face to Damon and let her body ease with relief. She imagined she could feel his breath on her face and his hand running through the sweat streaked strands of hair that has plastered themselves to her forehead.

"I guess, I just wanted the real thing," she said, thinking that indeed it was true. She had been alone because she had chosen to be. The hallucination was not enough when there was hope and deep down, even though she had burned that tree and even contemplated suicide, for the briefest of moments, she must still have had some hope. Hallucination Damon only appeared when all was lost and laying on that bed she knew it was another one of those times.

"Well, I'm here now. Tell me what you need me to do," he said to her, pulling his way onto the bed and wrapping his arms around her as she turned onto her side.

Bonnie rationally knew he wasn't there, that he couldn't be holding her, but she let herself think it all the same.

"Tell me everything is going to be okay," Bonnie commanded.

"Everything is going to be okay."

"Tell me you and I are going to see each other again."

"We will Bonnie, I promise."

"Tell me you love..." Bonnie stopped herself. She wasn't sure she wanted to say it aloud.

The pain was increasing. She needed to get herself some help.

"You need to get help," Hallucination Damon said, his soft voice gently penetrating her ear, making her shiver with delight.

Bonnie knew he, she, was right and so she reluctantly dragged herself out of bed and away from her beautiful vision.

xxxx

Sitting on a gurney in the hospital of Mystic Falls, Bonnie's shaky fingers fumbled as she worked to stich her wound closed. Wincing in pain, tears streaming from her bleary eyes, her hands stained in blood, Bonnie poured another dollop of the scotch she had brought from the Salvatore home onto her stomach and screamed out as the liquid seeped into her skin.

"I wish I could help," Hallucination Damon said. He was only repeating what Bonnie was thinking: that, yes, she wished he could be the one doing the dirty work. She knew the scar that would be left behind was bound to be jagged and uneven, an ugly reminder of how much she hated Kai, magic and 1994.

"Well, you can't. So be quiet. I have to think," Bonnie told him, as she picked up the medical needle again.

"You are thinking. I'm just saying what you're thinking," he told her, smiling.

"Please stop!" she yelled, so forcefully her booming voice ricocheted throughout the white room, off the metal trays and tools that surrounded her. Looking up from her work, Bonnie immediately saw that Hallucination Damon was gone. She had to finish the task at hand, she would think him into existence after it was all done, after she was mended. If that ever happened.

Watching the needle plunge into her skin and pulling the stich through, Bonnie was overcome with nausea, which was strange considering all the things she had seen and done as a witch, who had vampire friends, and a hunter boyfriend.

"Don't upchuck. There's no one here to clean it," Kai said, and Bonnie nearly fell from her seat on the gurney.

xxxx

Mystic Falls was his playground once again, but Damon found himself back in the cemetery, back to the place where he and Bonnie last locked hands and walked into the unknown: an unknown that was still her personal hell.

Sitting on the ground, his back resting against the tomb of John Mason, Damon knew he should be looking for Elena. He would, he told himself. He had to, wanted to, needed to. He loved her, so deeply. But his heart was growing. How that could be after a hundred plus years of death, her wasn't sure, but it was. Suddenly, he thought there was room for two.

With Kai back, it was entirely possible Bonnie could return home. Maybe not with the Ascendant, but with that crazy asshole's own blend of magic and power. If asking Liv to help and threatening Jo to help and begging whatever God he was pretending to believe in at any given time to help wasn't working, then maybe he needed to go to the source.

He wanted to ask Elena if that plan sounded sane: linking up with Kai, the man who stole Bonnie's future, in order to give it back to her. Yes, it was crazy, and Elena would tell him so. But she would also dare to believe in him and help him along the way. That was even crazier.

Where was she? Bonnie was trapped in 1994 via magic, but Elena...? She could chose to be with him, couldn't she? Unless something, or someone, had stopped her.

Damon stood up, suddenly realizing that the reason everything was going wrong, the reason Bonnie was still trapped and the reason Elena was missing were one in the same.

It was Kai.

xxxx

Kai's voice was so loud Bonnie felt as if he was already on top of her, smothering her in his smugness, choking her with his power, drowning her in fear.

She pushed back from the gurney, rushing behind it. She squatted into a protective position, her hands up, the needle swinging from her stomach, still stuck into her almost sealed wound. Scanning the area, side to side, her eyes darting back and forth, Bonnie saw no one.

There was no Kai.

It was a hallucination. Just like Damon, she thought. She scolded herself for letting that happen, letting his evil seep into her mind.

Her fear of Kai was encroaching on her time with Damon. She could not let the happen.

Standing straight, taking the needle in hand, Bonnie quickly and decisively finished the job, stitching the last length as if she were a pro. She was determined to keep her mind her own. Fear had no more room there.

Slapping gauze and a bandage over the now stitched wound, Bonnie took the last swig of scotch she had brought with her. She dropped the bottle on the floor, shattering it at her feet, as she stormed out of the room and the hospital.

"That was pretty dramatic," Hallucination Damon said once they reached the parking lot. He had fallen into step beside her and was struggling to keep pace. Bonnie's mind was dominate, Damon would have to take a back seat for the moment.

She has suddenly realized it wasn't just about getting back to him, being able to do a crossword or eat a pancake with her worst enemy/best friend. It was about getting the real Bonnie Bennett back. It was time.

"I'm ready to go home," Bonnie told him, and herself.

"I know," he said.

Bonnie smiled, "and when I get there, I'm going to kill Kai."


End file.
